


Here in the dark

by Sabaxoxoxo



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Canon Compliant, World War II, slightly sad but not quite angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22448629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabaxoxoxo/pseuds/Sabaxoxoxo
Summary: A teeny tiny barely-even-ficlet about Claire's ponderings on a night during the war, before The Stones.
Comments: 37
Kudos: 72





	Here in the dark

Amiens, France  
November 1944  
23:00

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I whispered aloud to myself, angrily stuffing my husband’s latest letter back into the envelope. It was the third visit he’d cancelled in as many months, and I swallowed a scoff at the slanted, self-assured hand that had composed yet another variation of the same sonnet he’d written for me last month, and the month before. One I’d spent hours poring over, trying to excavate some deeper sentiment under his apologies that the entire intelligence force was being overworked, no one was getting any time off. I looked for sensibility in his confessions that he remembered me constantly - my hands, my smile, making love to me. He’d even enclosed a sprig of rosemary in his latest letter as a symbol of his remembrance. I thought perhaps he should have kept the herb for himself, because he’d forgotten to wish me a happy birthday last month (as he’d said, the intelligence force was very busy), but promised the finest meal and gift next month, when he vowed he would be here for Christmas.

 _He’ll be here_ , I repeated to myself.

Shoving the letter into the drawer of my bedside table, I lay back in the narrow cot, remembering my naive expectations for marriage when I had first wed Frank. At eighteen, I saw a tall, handsome stranger, witty and somehow foreign, even though he was English like me. When he asked me to marry him, it felt as if I’d been plucked off the pages of history and pasted into a suave, smart world. My excitement sparked almost as brightly as the diamond necklace Frank had told me to wear to his University New Year's Eve party, as he introduced me to his colleagues as _Mrs. Randall_. I was eager to participate in their heated and puzzling debates about the Ottoman Empire or Viking weapons - things I’d spent my life learning about from Lamb. But I quickly found that Frank needed me to be the decorative wife - charming, of course, but amenable, facile. Rather like a pretty portrait hanging on the wall.

In a way, I supposed Frank was like all historians: once he’d felt he had discovered all there was to know about me - seemingly little, since we were married less than a year when I noticed his growing disinterest - he was itching to move on to new pursuits, historical or otherwise. In some cruel way, I was grateful that the war had started when it did, for it meant I could be useful again.

I pulled the thin sheet up to my chin, listening to the soft ripple of the other nurses’ snores in the air. Our days were full - we ate meals walking from ward to ward, bloody and exhausted. We fell asleep sitting at the bedsides of wounded soldiers who gripped our hands and begged “don’t go yet, miss,” so they didn’t have to die alone. I taught hygiene classes and emptied enough bedpans to last several lifetimes. And I spent my nights revising nursing texts or writing letters to Frank. There wasn’t a spare minute in my day, and yet my days felt empty.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine seeing Frank next month - the lines on his face, the way his hair fell over his forehead, the sound of his laugh - but no matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut, I could not seem to conjure him in my mind. I panicked suddenly. What if I was forgetting him?

_For God’s sake, Beauchamp, get a hold of yourself! You aren’t forgetting the love of your life just because you haven't seen him in a year!_

But maybe _he_ had. Or maybe he’d never considered me the love of his life in the first place. For some time now, I’d thought that perhaps to Frank, I was the love of just a time in his life; not all of it.

Staring vacantly up at the mildewy ceiling, I trailed my fingertips over my collarbones and down the centre of my chest, wondering what it would be like to be loved differently. To have a kind of love that you could hear; a symphony bursting just below your heart every time you spoke their name. A love that opened your chest so wide it felt like the entire universe was inside of you. The kind where you kissed with your eyes open so you didn’t miss a single second of that universe reflected in your lover’s eyes. A love with which you could step into the ocean and turn its salt into sugar.

As my nails grazed the soft underside of my breast, I coveted the quiet intimacy of a lover’s hand curved over it in sleep - a feeling of both comfort and claim. I imagined a love where I had no name, was no longer mine but _yours;_ a synaesthetic sensation of tasting colours I couldn’t even fathom. It was an inspiring, surprising, dazzling passion that I craved; and my heart quickened as my fingers trailed lower on my belly, wishing for a love that would challenge me, that would make choices difficult because the love was too amorphous to be contained within the bounds of logic and reason. I wanted to have my needs anticipated without voicing them, my secrets known before I knew them myself. I wanted to be loud, even when there were “ _people around us who might hear_ ,” and quiet when there was no sound, let alone word, to capture the sensation of all my emotions blending into one.

I shattered at the mercy of my fingertips before I had the chance to conjure a face to put to my fantasies. Clutching at the fabric of the pillowcase with my free hand, I shivered silently in the dark as blood pounded on my eardrums and the hairs on my jaw prickled. I breathed deeply in an attempt to slow my cantering heart and thought I had never before felt so alone.


End file.
